DRINKING WATER
Why Multi‑Commodity Utilities Need Smart Meter Data Management
Breaking down data silos allows multi-commodity utilities to improve operational efficiency and infrastructure visibility. By managing water and electric data on a shared platform, providers can detect leaks faster and support long-term conservation goals.
DRINKING WATER CASE STUDIES AND WHITE PAPERS
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Australian City Installs Microclor On‐Site Sodium Hypochlorite Generation System
Bathurst is the home of the Bathurst 1000 Race, the largest NASCAR-style “touring car” race in Australia. On race day, tens of thousands of additional visitors tax the capacity of the Bathurst 5 million-gallon-per- day wastewater treatment plant. The diligence and capability of the treatment staff allows the plant to meet the challenge every year.
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7 Things To Consider Before A Smart Meter Rollout
More than 45% of installed water meters in North America are equipped with automated meter reading technology, according to a recent IHS Technology 2014 report (“Water Meters Report – 2014”).
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Groundwater Remediation Ultrafiltration System Pilot And Operating Data
For many shuttered or abandoned chemical production sites, groundwater remediation is a requirement to address health, safety, and environmental issues. Remediation generally involves extracting groundwater from wells, processing it through various separation and purification process steps, and reinjecting the water back underground.
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Be There Without Being There – SITRANS Store IQ
After years of relying on an inflexible tracking process, A.P. Nonweiler introduced cloud-based remote monitoring technology to increase inventory transparency, save valuable man-hours, and minimize the risk of costly shutdowns.
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Safe And Sustainable Drinking Water For Over 200,000 People
A private company that provides water via privately-owned-and-operated well fields with enough annual water supply to provide sustainable drinking water to more than 200,000 people faced a number of sampling, testing, and monitoring challenges. Lab tests and environmental monitoring costs were high and the data collected was not easily integrated with their SCADA system.
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Project Profile: Meadow Lake MHC White Lake, MI 750 GPM Iron & Manganese System
In February 2008 AdEdge Technologies, Inc. was selected as the sole vendor by Sun Communities, a nation wide owner and operator of Mobile Home Communities, to supply an iron and manganese treatment system, for the Meadow Lake MHC in White Lake, Michigan. By Adedge Technologies Inc.
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Mussel Fouling Prevention At Shepaug Hydroelectric Station
While the population of invasive mussels was very low along the Housatonic River in 2015, the population was expected to increase in the coming years. Firstlight Energy, a subsidiary of GDF Suez and operators of a number of hydroelectric facilities in Connecticut and Massachusetts, was concerned about the detrimental effect the anticipated increase would have on the cooling water systems of the Shepaug Hydroelectric Station.
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How To Size An Advanced Oxidation System For A Variety Of Treatment Options
While UV AOP technology continues to gain traction, there are few regulations or standards for it, making it difficult for engineers to specify equipment size for new installations.
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Determining The Right Solution For Your Next Potable Water Project
Insertion valves are a go-to solution for public water systems for planned, routine, or emergency maintenance and repairs. This article discusses which features should be considered when choosing an insertion valve.
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Wastewater Plant In Como, Italy, Upgrades To De Nora Ozone For Significant Savings
The Lariana Depur wastewater treatment plant in Fino Mornasco, Italy, treats wastewater from multiple textile manufacturers in the Como region, known as the heart of the textile industry. Since 1994, ozone has been used effectively as a polisher to remove the dark blue-purple color — the result of the dyes used in the textile dyeing and printing process — from the water.
DRINKING WATER APPLICATION NOTES
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LC-MS Analysis Of PFAS Compounds In EPA 533 After Supelclean™ ENVI-WAX SPE Cleanup8/29/2022
This application note demonstrates the extraction and subsequent analysis of 25 related analytes from water using Supelco SPE cartridges.
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Biofouling Control In Cooling Towers With A Halogen Stabilizer10/22/2020
Biofouling in cooling towers is undesirable because it can reduce heat transfer efficiency, restrict water flow, and accelerate corrosion rates. Of even greater concern is the fact that pathogen growth in cooling towers can lead to disease transmission. Given the favorable growth environment of a cooling tower, these microorganisms can reproduce, proliferate and form complex biofilm communities. Legionella bacteria, which cause Legionnaires’ disease, are one of the greatest concerns from a public health standpoint because infections are often lethal and cooling towers are the most frequently reported non-potable water source of Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks (Llewellyn 2017).
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Phosphate In Groundwater And Surface Water: A Rapid And Reliable Determination Method Using The Photometric Spectroquant® Test1/31/2019
Phosphorus is an essential element for organisms and plants. In natural, uncontaminated waters, it occurs as organically bound phosphate, condensed phosphates or as orthophosphate — often referred to by its chemical formula PO4-P. The small quantity of phosphorus present in natural waters does not promote the growth of plants. However, a rise in the concentration of phosphorus results in the proliferation of algae, which leads to the eutrophication of the water body.
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Determination Of Polar Pesticide Residues In Food Of Plant Origin, By And Automate QuPPe Solution9/29/2014
The QuEChERS (Quick-Easy-Cheap-Effective-Rugged-Safe) sample extraction method was developed for the determination of pesticide residues in agricultural commodities.
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Irrigation Technology In Agriculture: How New Technologies Overcome Challenges1/29/2019
As the world’s population continues to increase at a fast pace, more food and water will be needed to sustain humanity. In the past 50 years, we have tripled our need for water and food, and there are no signs of this trend slowing down. As a result of these conditions, smart, innovative agricultural practices are needed now more than ever. Technology can, and already does, aid agriculture in innumerable ways. One prominent part of agriculture that can use technological innovation to increase efficiency and effectiveness is irrigation.
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Pipe Repair On A Budget3/7/2014
A new pipe-repair solution promises to save time and money, while also being sustainable, long-lasting, fully scalable, and safe for workers.
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Temperature Monitoring For Water Treatment4/29/2024
Learn how to ensure compliance, monitor water temperature diligently, and implement robust measures to mitigate regulatory penalties.
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The Basics: Testing RO Quality4/28/2014
Osmosis is the phenomenon of lower dissolved solids in water passing through a semi-permeable membrane into higher dissolved solids water until a near equilibrium is reached.
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Active Energy Control – Energy Reductions Of Up To 10% Above Standard Drives4/1/2017
Energy costs continue to increase. At the same time, there is increased pressure to reduce utility bills without sacrificing operations or comfort.
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Determination Of Pesticide Residues In Tea4/10/2015
In 2012, Americans consumed well over 79 billion servings of tea, which is just over 3.60 billion gallons.
LATEST INSIGHTS ON DRINKING WATER
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While most of us are routinely exposed to low levels of PFAS, some communities are exposed to far higher levels from nearby pollution sources. A new study shows that in one of these at-risk communities, children were more likely to develop asthma if their mothers were exposed to very high PFAS levels during pregnancy.
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A shift in how we approach source water protection is long overdue. Currently, we are trapped in a cycle of escalating costs, forced to treat symptoms like algae and invasive weeds expediently with chemicals while the underlying risk in the reservoir compounds. True risk management requires breaking this cycle.
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Einstein once said of compound interest, "He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn't, pays it." The same logic of compounding applies to the organic sediment accumulating on the floor of your drinking water reservoir. The longer you wait to address it, the more exponentially expensive it becomes to fix.
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The April 1 snowpack measurement has long been the single most important number in western water management, considered a strong proxy for how much water the mountains are holding in reserve. But in 2026, that savings account has been woefully deficient.
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Why Colorado River Negotiations Stalled, And How They Could Resume With The Possibility Of AgreementThe five most common sources of conflict between people are values, data, relationships, interests, and structure. The current Colorado River negotiations include all five.
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Water agencies across the U.S. are facing a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) that poses a conundrum: Should they take a cautious or aggressive approach to treating PFAS contamination in their water system?
ABOUT DRINKING WATER
In most developed countries, drinking water is regulated to ensure that it meets drinking water quality standards. In the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administers these standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).
Drinking water considerations can be divided into three core areas of concern:
- Source water for a community’s drinking water supply
- Drinking water treatment of source water
- Distribution of treated drinking water to consumers
Drinking Water Sources
Source water access is imperative to human survival. Sources may include groundwater from aquifers, surface water from rivers and streams and seawater through a desalination process. Direct or indirect water reuse is also growing in popularity in communities with limited access to sources of traditional surface or groundwater.
Source water scarcity is a growing concern as populations grow and move to warmer, less aqueous climates; climatic changes take place and industrial and agricultural processes compete with the public’s need for water. The scarcity of water supply and water conservation are major focuses of the American Water Works Association.
Drinking Water Treatment
Drinking Water Treatment involves the removal of pathogens and other contaminants from source water in order to make it safe for humans to consume. Treatment of public drinking water is mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. Common examples of contaminants that need to be treated and removed from water before it is considered potable are microorganisms, disinfectants, disinfection byproducts, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals and radionuclides.
There are a variety of technologies and processes that can be used for contaminant removal and the removal of pathogens to decontaminate or treat water in a drinking water treatment plant before the clean water is pumped into the water distribution system for consumption.
The first stage in treating drinking water is often called pretreatment and involves screens to remove large debris and objects from the water supply. Aeration can also be used in the pretreatment phase. By mixing air and water, unwanted gases and minerals are removed and the water improves in color, taste and odor.
The second stage in the drinking water treatment process involves coagulation and flocculation. A coagulating agent is added to the water which causes suspended particles to stick together into clumps of material called floc. In sedimentation basins, the heavier floc separates from the water supply and sinks to form sludge, allowing the less turbid water to continue through the process.
During the filtration stage, smaller particles not removed by flocculation are removed from the treated water by running the water through a series of filters. Filter media can include sand, granulated carbon or manufactured membranes. Filtration using reverse osmosis membranes is a critical component of removing salt particles where desalination is being used to treat brackish water or seawater into drinking water.
Following filtration, the water is disinfected to kill or disable any microbes or viruses that could make the consumer sick. The most traditional disinfection method for treating drinking water uses chlorine or chloramines. However, new drinking water disinfection methods are constantly coming to market. Two disinfection methods that have been gaining traction use ozone and ultra-violet (UV) light to disinfect the water supply.
Drinking Water Distribution
Drinking water distribution involves the management of flow of the treated water to the consumer. By some estimates, up to 30% of treated water fails to reach the consumer. This water, often called non-revenue water, escapes from the distribution system through leaks in pipelines and joints, and in extreme cases through water main breaks.
A public water authority manages drinking water distribution through a network of pipes, pumps and valves and monitors that flow using flow, level and pressure measurement sensors and equipment.
Water meters and metering systems such as automatic meter reading (AMR) and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) allows a water utility to assess a consumer’s water use and charge them for the correct amount of water they have consumed.